Demolition

The armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge continue to use government equipment inside the complex.

One militant, who refused to give his name, again plowed dirt with a refuge bulldozer Wednesday. He wouldn’t say why he was operating the machinery, but in several places, sagebrush and vegetation had been newly removed, leaving wide patches of bare mud within the complex.

He said the road was already there, and the Bundy gang had just been removing snow from it. That was a big fat lie.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed Thursday that not only is the road built last week by the occupiers new, but it is also within an archaeological site important to the Burns Paiute Tribe.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assistant director of external affairs, Jason Holm, condemned the militants last week for what he called “disgusting, ghoulish behavior.”

They removed part of a fence to create the short access road.

That fence was in place “as a deterrent to keep fire crews from driving across the archaeological site,” said Holm.

So that it wouldn’t be damaged, you see.

It appears militants moved rocks from an existing gravel pile in the compound to surface the road.

“It was just a goat trail before,” one militant told OPB, who also declined to provide his name. “People were slipping and falling.”

People who aren’t supposed to be there, people who have invaded the wildlife refuge in order to steal it and destroy it for anything other than grazing their cattle for their profit. If I break into your house and find the kitchen floor slippery, I don’t get to install a new road through it.

“There’s a reason why there’s not a road there,” said Foerster. “If there was a need for a road in that particular location, we would have over the past 108 years put a road in that location.”

The agency said the action is likely a violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, also known as the ARPA.

“Even disturbing 3 to 4 inches on the surface is an ARPA violation,” said Holm. “Investigators will have to excavate to determine depth of disturbance in several areas to understand the extent of the damage.”

10 Responses to “Demolition”

Is it really just that the Feds are haunted by the memory of Waco and Ruby Ridge? Can they not figure out how to arrest these guys peacefully? Are they waiting for them to get bored and go home? Do they want to signal to everyone that federal land is up for grabs? I’m completely mystified by this.

Right? People keep saying it’s because Waco and Ruby Ridge, but that doesn’t make sense. This is a publicly owned wildlife refuge, not some people’s house. They were committing crimes from the outset, visibly, on camera. They’re threatening and visibly doing damage. The situation is very different.

Anyway I’ve never shared the widely held belief that the Feds over-reacted in Waco and Ruby Ridge. Did a bad job of it, yes, but over-reacted, no. (Well, in Waco. I know much less about Ruby Ridge.)

Even if the local cops feel they are too understaffed to do anything, they can at least file the fucking paperwork to warrants on the occupants. Accompany the warrants with the plates of the vehicles they might be driving – their own, and they ones owned by the refuge that they illegally use – and suddenly every trip out of their safe zone, especially if they try to flee across state borders, becomes fraught with the risk of arrest.

And they didn’t even bother to arrest Bundy WHEN HE LEFT THE PROPERTY. Jesus, why the hell aren’t they acting?! The feds haven’t even bothered to cut off the power to the refuge! They’re just sitting in town enjoying apple pie and motel movies, apparently.

I think this makes perfect sense if you look at the entire history of federal enforcement of rules on government land, which is notoriously lax. Logging companies cutting roads through undisturbed areas to make them ineligible for wilderness status while it was being considered by Congress. Clear cutting on public lands. The only difference is that this is so in your face that it is proving to be an embarrassment to the government. They are following a fairly standard procedure of not interfering with business, extractive industry, or ranching interests. They simply don’t have a play book for getting them out.

I wonder of the Burns Paiute Tribe might have a backbone. Having their national site looted and pillaged by a pack of out-of-state gangsters might inspire SOMEONE to act as if the meant anything in Oregon.